Schwartz, community volunteer, supporter of Israeli issues, dies

Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2004 | 9:25 a.m.

Bernice Schwartz was not afraid to speak her mind on political issues, even to people whose views were opposite hers.

Once, her son, Deputy District Attorney David Schwartz, took her to a party where they ran into his boss, then-Gov. Bob Miller.

"Mom laid into him about his views on abortion," Schwartz said of his pro-choice mother. "She often said that because she had lived to be in her 90s she had earned the right to say whatever was on her mind to anyone."

Bernice Price Schwartz, a buyer for major New York department stores who retired to Las Vegas 25 years ago and became known for her volunteer work at Sunrise Hospital and her philanthropic support of Israel and Jewish causes, died Jan. 28. She was 97.

Her family disclosed her death Tuesday. The cause they said was complications of old age. There were no services.

Throughout her life, Schwartz was a fiercely independent woman who never let age stand in her way, her family said.

"When she moved to Las Vegas, she was in her 70s, but she went to the Department of Motor Vehicles and got a driver's license for the first time in her life," said Cheryl Schwartz, her daughter-in-law. "She then got a job at a car rental company. She insisted on working most of her life."

Born Bernice Price in London, England, on July 29, 1906, she was the eldest of five children of tailor Nathan Price and the former Emma Fleischman.

Because she was the eldest and because her parents worked long hours, Bernice played a key role in raising her younger siblings, but still found time to play with her first cousins, Hank and David Greenspun, Alice Goldberg and Millie Kishner, her family said.

Hank Greenspun was publisher of the Las Vegas Sun until his death in 1989.

After graduating from high school in New Haven, Price went to New York, where during World War II she worked in the Remington munitions factory.

At war's end, she married Irving Schwartz, a New York hotel manager. They were married for 30 years until his death in 1975.

Bernice Schwartz long worked as a women's apparel buyer for Bloomingdales and, after that, held a similar post with the Movie Star lingerie store.

In 1978, Schwartz retired to Las Vegas where she was a volunteer in the Sunrise Hospital gift shop from the early 1980s until the early 1990s.

Schwartz, who had been a supporter of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, continued to attend cultural events in Las Vegas and was a longtime supporter of KLVX Channel 10, the Public Broadcasting System station.

Well into her 90s, Schwartz, a Democrat, closely followed politics, specifically the relationship between Israel and the United States.

A member of Haddasah, she was critical of what she perceived as the United States not doing enough to help Israel in its Middle East struggles, her family said.

One of her favorite charities, her family said, was supporting local drives to purchase ambulances for the Israel.

In addition to her son and daughter-in-law, Schartz is survived by a brother, Ralph Price of Tamarae, Fla.; a sister, Alice Ross of Del Ray Beach, Fla.; two grandchildren, Bryan Schwartz and Caroline Schwartz, both of Las Vegas; and her best friends, Barbara Greenspun, Belle Greenspun and Gladys Dorfler, all of Las Vegas.

Her family says donations can be made in Bernice Schwartz's memory to Hadassah or Magen David Adom.